No business trip in Las Vegas is ever simply just that. Inevitably, things get wild, and potentially out of hand.
They certainly did for the Boston Bruins on Thursday as they opened their three-game venture out west with a sloppy 6-5 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights at T-Mobile arena.
“We knew it was going to be tough here,” Bruins coach Marco Sturm told reporters in Vegas. “It’s a veteran group, but again, we just got to be smarter than that. We still have a lot of really good players in our lineup, but that’s not our standard. We just got to be way better. We got to buy in on our defensive effort. That was just not the case today.”
Like a gambler who just doesn’t know when to walk away from the table, the Bruins couldn’t stop themselves from chasing. One moment, they were big winners, riding a momentous high, only to lose their all earnings one hand later.
Boston opened the scoring at 2:05 of the first period when Tanner Jeannot banged in a puck down low for his second goal of the season. The lead, however, didn’t hold for long. In fact, it lasted just a 1:35 until Vegas forward Pavel Dorofeyev got in behind the Bruins defense and fired a shot over the blocker of Jeremy Swayman with even the score.
The Bruins jumped back ahead at 16:44 with a Nikita Zadorov goal, only for Cole Reinhardt to respond in kind for the Golden Knights 1:55 later, tying the score back up at 2-2 heading into the middle frame.
Jack Eichel gave the Golden Knights the lead 4:14 into the second period, which Tomas Hertl then doubled moments with the first power play goal given up by Boston this year.
Just as it seemed the game was starting to slip away from the Bruins, David Pastrnak drew them closer with a goal on the man-advantage that cut the score to 4-3.
Soon thereafter, the Bruins found themselves in a precarious position after taking a pair of penalties midway through the period, one of which was a double minor, putting them in an extended five-on-three shorthanded situation.
Somehow, though, with an impressive combination of stamina, execution, and more than a little bit of luck, Swayman (31 saves on 37 shots) and an overworked group of penalty killers survived.
“Sway, that was what worked,” said Charlie McAvoy. “They got a ton of chances. That’s a really good five-man unit. They got a ton of looks and Sway bent but didn’t break. It was a big kill at the time.”
With all the momentum working in their favor, the Bruins had the chance to knot the score heading into the second intermission with another opportunity on the man-advantage. Instead, they ended up down by two after William Karlsson scored a shorthanded goal for Vegas.
“We weren’t on the same page,” Pastrnak said. “A couple mistakes, and we gave up a breakaway that ends up in our net. You can’t let that happen. The power play, we have to create momentum at least.”
Karlsson opened the third with another goal, this time on the power play, that made it a 6-3 advantage for the Golden Knights. The Bruins managed to cut the deficit back down to one after Mark Kastelic and Mikey Eyssimont scored a pair of goals just 1:07 a part, but never found the all important equalizer late in the game.
“It’s important to ever quit in a wild game,” said Pastrnak. “You see crazy scores all the time. Do we want that? No, not really. But, at the same time, the season is so long that this kind of game is going to happen. We just have to make sure we are on the better side of it. Obviously, we don’t want to give up five goals. It’s hard to win in this league.”
The Bruins will continue their road trip on Saturday when they visit the Colorado Avalanche at 9 p.m.
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